Senses Fail have announced their highly anticipated eighth album ‘Hell Is In Your Head.’ The album is set for release 15th July 2022 via Pure Noise Records. Co-produced by Saosin’s Beau Burchell, ‘Hell Is In Your Head’ marks the band’s first studio album since 2018’s ‘If There Is Light, It Will Find You.’
The announcement is accompanied by the release of their brand new single ‘I’m Sorry I’m Leaving’ which sees vocalist Buddy Nielsen confronting his anxieties around being a career musician and the constant struggle to create a good work/life balance and being a father. With the wider album’s themes, Nielsen explores the more philosophical and abstract nature of death, mortality and pulls inspiration form works such as TS Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ and placing the album in the same world. These key elements helped form his vision for Senses Fail.
“The band has now become me and vice-versa.” He explains: “I’m trying to put myself on the map as a songwriter and as a complete musician, not just as a lyricist or the singer. This is where I had been planning to get to over the last three records. As a touring entity we are still five people, but when it comes down to the writing, it’s a solo vision as far as where I want to take it”.
Nielsen sees this album as a thematic sequel to the band’s 2006 second full-length, ‘Still Searching.’ In fact, Nielsen deliberately began this record in the same key as ‘The Priest And The Matador,’ the last song on ‘Still Searching,‘ to really emphasise the connection between the two.
Speaking on their new single ‘I’m Sorry I’m Leaving’ he comments: “I wrote this song about the constant struggling with making music and art as a living. I am constantly waiting for it to all fail and disappear even 20 years into a career. At no point do I ever feel safe. After having a child, the relationship with this lifestyle became more strained. Having to leave home and lose time with your child while also hoping that what you do continues to support your family and remains fulfilling is complicated. Continuing to improve and remove my own trauma in order to be a better father is the bases and goal of the song.”
‘Hell Is In Your Head’ track listing:
01. Burial of the Dead
02. End of The World/A Game of Chess
03. The Fire Sermon
04. I Am Error
05. Death by Water
06. What the Thunder Said
07. Miles to Go
08. Lush Rimbaugh
09. Hell is in Your Head
10. I’m Sorry I’m Leaving
11. Grow Away from Me